How Permissions Work.

CAA Permissions in the UK for undertaking aerial filming.  At the CAA headquarters at Gatwick there is a department containing Operations Inspectors, these are all effectively poachers turned game-keepers!  They have seen (and probably done in their civilian lives) every trick in the book.  Every public transport helicopter company operating in the UK is nominated its own Ops Inspector and periodically they are examined to ensure that the day to day procedures of the company's operations does actually comply with all legal requirements.  The regulations covering operations are contained within the Air Navigation Order and the Company's Operations manual.  Separately and just as important are the regulations covering engineering. All these aspects are to safeguard the innocent public when they hire an aircraft. To film makers this can be a pain because it is quite possible to have highly experienced, current Pilots and engineers who cannot fly / work on another company's identical aircraft because the approved, correct inter company any paper work is not in place. Where it is required to make a flight with what would normally be considered breaking the law then a dispensation must be issued.  Therefore, the application to gain a dispensation is an application to waive the law, and therefore is not taken lightly at the CAA. A full submission of how the flight will be conducted must be made and if they are satisfied an Exemption document is issued, signed by the Head of Department.  They are normally quite specific on dates and location . Therefore Production companies who are not aware of these complexities can cause huge problems when they change location details at a late stage.  Clearly all of this takes time, therefore last minute decisions are difficult/impossible. Low flying Rules The low flying rules in the UK are diverse, however oddly in open countryside there are no low flying rules! The rule specifically says that "no aircraft shall fly closer than 500 ft to any person, vehicle, vessle or structure". So if none of this criteria applies you could in fact fly down to the surface legally. However, it is a moot point as to whether something such as a wall or road is a structure. (Is someone on the other side of the wall eating their sandwiches ?) Therefore the "safest" height to fly is not lower than 500 ft thus achieving guaranteed vertical separation. There are additional specific low flying rules. You may not fly lower than 1500 ft over a built up town or settlement or 3000ft over a gathering of 1000 people or more.  Within reason, it is perfectly possible to get a dispensation to fly considerably lower than these standard rules, but it all depends on who, when, how and what.  Nothing can be assumed and the CAA do not recognise any precedent. To be continued